In the message, Hitler claimed he had just had 19 teeth extracted

Apr 8, 2014 11:36 GMT  ·  By
It is believed Hitler lied in the postcard, as he was known to hate the dentist
   It is believed Hitler lied in the postcard, as he was known to hate the dentist

A handwritten postcard sent by Adolf Hitler during the First World War to a fellow soldier stationed in France, in which he claimed he had just had 19 teeth extracted, was discovered in Munich.

According to Daily Mail, the card is dated December 21, 1916, and was found in the possession of a postcard collector. It has a picture of Berlin's Landwehr Canal on the front and bears the stamp of the 2nd Bavarian Infantry Regiment, Hitler's unit at the time.

The future Nazi leader was then just a ­German army private and was fighting on the Western Front. After being hit in the thigh by a grenade splinter, Hitler spent some time in Munich recovering from the wound.

That's when he wrote the postcard to a comrade called Karl Lanzhammer, stationed in France, lamenting about a visit to the dentist and claiming to have had 19 teeth removed.

“You can’t imagine how nice I looked. Now I’m better,” Hitler wrote.

The postcard has been authenticated by Ludwig Eiber, history professor at the University of Augsburg, who says, “The postcard is written in his handwriting and signed by him. There is not doubt that it is genuine.”

However, it is thought that Hitler lied in the postcard, as he was known to hate the dentist and historical records mention that he had just 15 teeth removed in his entire lifetime.

This is not the only card Hitler sent to Karl Lanzhammer during his stay in Munich. Another one, sent from the same hospital around the same time, December 1916, was discovered in 2012.

In that missive, the future Führer of Nazi Germany was saying, “Would that I could be back with you. Unfortunately there is no chance of me coming back to the Front, at least not right now.”

Lanzhammer was killed in March 1918, while training to be a pilot at Oberschleissheim, near Munich.

Interestingly enough, Hitler's teeth and his fear of going to the dentist have been the subject of a book, titled “Dentist of the Devil,” in which the author Menevse Deprem-Hennen chronicles the work of the Fuehrer's personal dentist Johannes Blaschke, who was in charge of his denture for nearly 20 years.

“Everyone who knew something about the status of Hitler's teeth was of supreme interest to the Allies after the war because of the few remains of his skull and jawbone found in the ruins of the bunker in Berlin where he committed suicide in 1945,” she said in the book.